by Associate
Professor Stephen Teo, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Caterpillar
is the latest opus of Koji Wakamatsu, a veteran of the exploitation genre in
the Japanese cinema who has directed numerous pinku eiga movies (or
“pink films”, a term used by the Japanese to describe soft-core porn movies).
Caterpillar,
however, resists the pinku eiga category although it
undoubtedly carries elements of the genre. On the surface, there are scenes of
exploitative sex, violence, and horrible body disfigurations and mutilations
that are par for the course in the genre. Set during the time of World War II
in Japan, the movie portrays a young soldier who arrives home after suffering
injuries that leave him a hump of flesh minus his arms and legs. Idolised as a
"war god", the soldier continues his existence making demands of sex
on his wife who faithfully complies.
Wakamatsu
turns his material into deeper explorations of human behaviour preoccupied by
the primal sex drive even if one partner is deformed and mutilated. There is an
anti-war message as well, but Caterpillar above all exposes the rawness
and the violence of sex. While war delivers horrible injuries on the male
partner, his sex drive delivers both physical and spiritual violence on the
female. Wakamatsu conveys this message in an uncompromising and therefore
confronting manner.
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